


Mere Exposure Effect

by cptsdcarlosdevil



Category: Academia RPF, The Undoing Project
Genre: Anal Sex, Bickering, Dirty Talk, Fluff, M/M, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9790592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsdcarlosdevil/pseuds/cptsdcarlosdevil
Summary: "What they were like, in every way but sexually, was lovers. They connected with each other more deeply than either had connected with anyone else... “Just to be with him,” said Danny. “I never felt that way with anyone else, really. You are in love and things. But I was rapt. And that’s what it was like. It was truly extraordinary.”" --The Undoing Project





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in an AU in which no one is married.

“Have you ever thought about homosexuality?” Amos asked.

Danny and Amos were sitting on two chairs in Amos’s office which, as ever, contained nothing but the customary pencil. Knee to knee, they bent over a shared notepad. Amos’s too-casual remark was unrelated to their previous discussion-- a debate about whether in their vignette Linda should be a banker or a poet-- but then he often strayed away from the topic when a good idea occurred to him.

“What, like Kinsey 1, Kinsey 6?” Danny said. “Do you mean as a research topic? It’s a bit of a divergence from the psychology of judgment, wouldn’t you say?”

“I was thinking more as a... personal matter, rather than a professional,” Amos said. At that moment, Danny Kahneman became one of the few people who had ever seen Amos Tversky nervous. He probably would have appreciated it more were it not for the startling words that were coming out of Amos’s mouth. “I have… sometimes found myself attracted to men. In the past, it has always been… easy to ignore. A few times, in the army, when I thought I was going to die-- well, never mind that.”

If there is a truly startling revelation, a person often has a hard time grasping the entire thing, and instead fixates on a minor aspect of it. (A small part of Danny’s brain-- one that was always active nowadays-- squirreled that observation away and began drafting a vignette. _It was just revealed to you that your best friend is a homosexual..._ ) That is probably why Danny’s response to Amos’s revelation that he was a homosexual was _Amos is talking about the war, Amos never talks about the war…_

“Amos,” Danny said, “you know that’s not going to make me think any differently of you. You’re my collaborator, my best friend, I don’t care if you go to bed with men or women or, or dead chickens.”

Amos ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up in fourteen directions. “That’s not the-- Daniel Kahneman,” Amos said, “I am hopelessly, utterly, unbearably in love with you.”

Oh.

Well then.

Danny had always considered himself heterosexual, even if more in aspiration than in practice. The sin of sodomy was one he had never felt the slightest desire to commit. (Masturbation, on the other hand, he committed enthusiastically and with great regularity.) He had known, vaguely, that homosexuals existed, much as he was aware of ice dancing and the country of Burma.

But this wasn’t a man. This was Amos. Everyone was half in love with Amos. He was the center of every room; everyone’s eyes were drawn to him. He shone from the inside. The idea of having sex with a man was odd and vaguely repulsive. The idea of having sex with Amos was…

...not.

Amos was muttering to himself. “He’s silent. That’s not a good sign. Oh, I knew this was a terrible idea--”

Danny was mostly, he felt, a creature of mistakes, badly stitched together with hope and overcompensation. The reason he believed that humans weren’t rational is that he, Danny Kahneman, was not rational, and while he knew he was probably more irrational than most people he flattered himself that he wasn’t that exceptional. Every mistake he and Tversky studied started out as one he had made. It was pretty certain, Danny felt, that he would never do much of anything right.

But sometimes, it was as if he were possessed by an angel and he did exactly the right thing.

That was his explanation about why he crossed the six inches between him and Amos, grabbed Amos’s collar, and pressed a clumsy kiss into Amos’s lips. If he had had time to think, he would never have done it. But sometimes some fast part of his mind knew something was right even though the slow, rational part would never figure it out.

Amos made a noise like “sporfle”, which was extremely gratifying.

If Amos had been Danny, he would have pulled apart, stopped the kiss, demanded to know whether this was a prank or his idea of a joke or, perhaps worst of all, pity. But for his entire life everyone had been half in love with Amos, and he had the quiet confidence of a man who had never learned not to take it as his due. Of course a heterosexual man turned gay for him. Of course.

Amos appeared too overwhelmed to approach this task with anything other than distraction. His hands darted among every part of Danny’s body they could reach; he half-stroked down Danny’s back, then briefly petted his hair, then pulled in his buttocks for a quick squeeze, then petted his hair again, then cupped his face as Amos stared into Danny’s eyes with a look that could only be described as worship. Amos kissed the side of Danny’s mouth, his cheekbones, his eyes; he kissed a line along Danny’s hairline. All the while, he murmured incoherent pleasantries into Danny’s lips and skin: “so good… so good, so nice, so beautiful, so handsome, my good boy… love you so much…”

Danny, conversely, was too overwhelmed to do anything other than hang his arms limply at his sides and hope that Amos would not notice the enormous erection pressing into his leg or, failing that, would take it as a compliment.

When they broke apart, they grinned at each other, half-flushed, for a few moments. Then Amos announced, “I have given up all hope of accomplishing anything productive for the rest of today.”

“I hope,” Danny said, “this doesn’t mean that there will be a decline in the productivity of our partnership.”

Amos shook his head sharply. “An increase,” he said, “an increase. I will not find myself continually distracted from thoughts of mathematical psychology by thoughts of how much I wanted your lips on mine.”

Danny considered this. “You weren’t distracted,” he said.

“No, I wasn’t,” Amos admitted, “fortunately for our collaboration your mind is at least twenty times as fascinating as your derriere, which is already, mm, an extraordinarily fascinating derriere.”

Danny was dubious. He was weird and gangly and overly Jewish, and his smile had about fourteen times as many teeth as one generally hoped a smile would have. It was hard for him to imagine anyone having an opinion on his derriere that was more passionate than “acceptable.”

(It occurred to him that Amos Tversky was also weird and gangly and overly Jewish, but attractiveness standards that applied to mere mortals did not apply to Amos Tversky.)

Danny’s thought process about his derriere and the acceptability or non-acceptability thereof was immediately derailed by Amos, who had apparently realized that he now had carte blanche to grope said derriere, and was doing so with excellent zeal. Danny’s arousal, previously in abeyance due to their conversation, returned in full force. Amos’s other hand began to stroke under Danny’s shirt, his mouth to nibble at Danny’s neck, leaving a trail of hot breath down the side. It felt like electricity was shooting through Danny at Amos’s touch. He tossed his head back and bit his lip.

“Can I…?” Amos said.

“Yes,” Danny said, uncertain what he was saying yes to, but not really caring.

Danny felt Amos’s hand fumbling around his belt buckle and the sound of someone spitting in his hand, and then there was a hand wrapped around his cock, and it was warm and tight and fast and different from touching himself. Danny rested his head on Amos’s shoulder, feeling his warmth and the flat broadness of his chest. It felt like every nerve was hyper-sensitive: he could feel the coldness of the desk he was pressed up against and the fluttering of Amos’s chest and the slightest movement which Amos made with his hand. Danny was making small embarrassing noises, and if anyone were walking by they would be able to tell he and Amos were having sex, but that was so far from the most important thing in Danny’s mind right now. Amos shifted so their foreheads were pressed together, nose to nose, and he looked into Amos’s eyes, pupils dilated with arousal, and Amos’s hand did something which felt amazingly good and Danny cried out, coming all over his pants and Amos’s pants and Amos’s hand.

Danny was going to have a crisis about what he’d just done, would have predicted he’d have a crisis, but honestly he felt so boneless and so good it was an effort to do anything but rest limp against the desk and smile at Amos.

Amos’s pants were also unbuckled and his penis was poking out, silly-looking and earnest. A glistening drop was at the top.

“Your turn,” Amos said.

“I’ve never--”

“You’ve masturbated, haven’t you?” Amos said in a matter-of-fact fashion. Danny nodded. “Well, it’s the same principles, just on a different person.”

Danny spat in his hand and then approached Amos’s penis cautiously, as if he were afraid that it would bite.

It was not, Danny thought, actually anything at all like masturbation.

He knew the general outline of what to do: up and down, at a moderate pace and pressure, until orgasm. But there wasn’t the instant feedback he got from masturbation, the surge of pleasure that meant that he had done something very right. Instead, he paid close attention to Amos: to every hitch of Amos’s breath, to the tension in his muscles, to the way his hands squeezed the desk, to the moaning noises Amos made, to the flush that crept up his neck. Interestingly, the necessity of paying attention seemed to arouse Danny more; it reminded him that he was touching Amos Tversky.

“Love you,” Amos whispered. “So good, you’re-- you’re doing so well, this feels amazing, I want-- you are amazing.”

Danny pressed his face close to Amos’s and took a deep breath, took in the smell of him. It was comforting in this otherwise ludicrous situation: Danny, touching the penis of a man, inside a professor’s office, while notes on the psychology of judgment lay abandoned on the floor. But the smell was Amos’s, familiar from long nights spent close to him, arguing and writing and laughing, and it was not so strange, after all, to think they might add sex to that.

“Oh god I’m close,” Amos said faintly, and then Danny felt a strange pulsing through Amos’s penis, and a warm liquid splattered on his hand. He vaguely wondered why this sensation was so unfamiliar, then realized that of course he had always been too distracted in the past to pay much attention, and now Danny’s entire existence was centered around Amos, the feel of him, the scent of him.

“I assure you I normally take far longer to orgasm,” Amos said serenely.

“Uh huh,” Danny said.

“The love of my life, whom I had entirely given up on returning my affections,” Amos said, “unexpectedly grabbed me, kissed me, allowed me to watch him orgasm, then touched my penis. Anyone would finish quickly under the circumstances.”

“I believe you,” Danny said, looking around for something to clean off the semen, which was rapidly cooling and becoming sticky.

“We will just have to go back to my place,” Amos said, “where I can show you precisely what I can do.”

Danny had not had this short a refractory period since he was fourteen.

\--

The odd thing was that no one noticed.

You would think that falling in love with your collaborator would lead to some discernible changes in behavior. But Amos and Danny were so close-- or perhaps had been falling in love for so long-- that the actual confession of love changed nothing. Spending all their time together? They already did that. On the rare occasions they were apart, Danny being unable to stop talking about how wonderful Amos was? Yeah, he already did that too. Even spending the night together wasn’t unusual, when they’d been so caught up in their ideas that Danny had collapsed into unconsciousness before he’d known he was tired.

Danny flinched when Amos casually threw an arm around his shoulder in the middle of the lecture room. But no one even gave them a second glance. Physical affection, everyone seemed to believe, was a normal progression of events for Amos and Danny.

“I love you,” Amos said, “and you are the most handsome man alive.”

“They can hear you,” Danny hissed.

“We’re speaking Hebrew,” Amos pointed out. “Everyone in America is monolingual.”

Danny mentally replayed the last few seconds of conversation and belatedly realized they were, in fact, speaking Hebrew.

“I can say to you whatever I want and they’ll never know.” Amos’s voice had the sort of cheerful good humor in it that meant he had just thought of a brilliant idea.

“Oh no,” Danny said.

Amos’s hand traced lightly along Danny’s neck. “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons,” he said. “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

“What are you doing?” Danny said.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Amos said. “I’m just talking about the Tanakh. Enriching, isn’t it? As I was saying… ‘my beloved is mine, and I am his: he feeds among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.’”

Danny’s face was hot and he felt irrationally certain that everyone in the room was watching his blush right now and knew, knew, exactly what was happening. “Stop that.”

“Not in the mood for God, are we?” Amos’s voice still had that cheerful good humor in it which, Danny knew, meant disaster. “So how about this. When we get back to your house I am going to push you down onto the bed and swallow you into my throat.” Each of the last five words was punctuated by a light tap of Amos’s fingertips against Danny’s neck.

“Urk,” Danny said eloquently.

“I’m going to tease and kiss and lick you,” Amos said, his voice caressing the words, “until your eyes have rolled back into your head and you don’t know where or who you are.”

A passing grad student glanced at Danny. He tried to look absorbed in thought.

“I’m going to hold you down,” Amos said, “and rub my penis over your lips and watch you beg for me to let you lick it. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Danny casually positioned a nearby decision theory textbook over his lap, as if he were reading it, and definitely not as if he had an enormous erection which he would have to conceal from any inquisitive grad students, Hebrew or no Hebrew.

“This is unfair,” he complained.

“You like it,” Amos said, his hands running through Danny’s hair and sending a shiver down his spine. “In fact, I think you’d like it if I undid your pants right now and started touching your cock in front of everyone here. If I let them all know that you’re mine. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Orgasming with everyone in the entirety of the research institute watching?”

Danny was not going to moan. It would be super-embarrassing to moan. Everyone here knew enough linguistics that they would not believe him if he claimed that moaning was a Hebrew word. But Amos’s voice, and the thought of everyone watching him as he was aroused, and the way Amos’s finger’s scratched his scalp…

“I think,” Danny announced in English for the benefit of any curious onlookers, “we need to go to your office. And, uh. Research. Right. Research.”

\--

“That,” Amos said, “is an exit.”

They were lying naked in Danny’s bed. Amos’s penis, pink and velvety, was hard against his thigh.

“I’ve read the Kinsey reports,” Danny said. “This is what homosexual men do.”

“I have had sex with men,” Amos said. “And I can assure you that, Kinsey report or no Kinsey report, it is not what this homosexual man has ever done.”

“They wouldn’t keep doing it if it wasn’t fun,” Danny said.

“Isn’t the entirety of our research the study of human irrationality?” Amos said. “Are you not, yourself, the man who has critiqued revealed preferences to me at great extent--”

Danny harrumphed. “I think it’s worth a try.”

“So what you want,” Amos said, “is to put vegetable shortening in your rectum so that I can put my dick in it, in order that you may feel a sensation which is probably best described as taking a shit in reverse?”

“Okay, when you put it like that it sounds like a terrible idea,” Danny said.

“Yes, it does.” Amos sighed. “Let’s try it.”

“I’m not going to-- wait, what?”

“But the vegetable shortening is going in my rectum,” Amos said. “I am not going to make you suffer the consequences of your own ridiculous ideas.”

“That is a terrible incentive structure,” Danny said. “The behaviorists would throw a fit.”

“And yet it is the incentive structure of our entire relationship,” Amos said. “I see no reason that sex should be any different from mathematical psychology. Give it here.”

Danny handed over the tub of Crisco.

“So I’m supposed to… do what with this exactly?” Amos asked.

“Make it wet,” Danny said. “So it’s sort of like a vagina.”

“If you want to have sex with a vagina,” Amos said crossly, “it seems to me you should not be having sex with a man.”

“We don’t have to do this,” Danny said.

“Shut up,” Amos said. “So do I… rub it around the outside?”

“I guess?” Danny said. “Maybe a little on the inside too.”

Amos swiped three of his fingers through the Crisco, then began to rub between his legs. After some time, he said, “I suppose it does not feel awful.”

“A glowing recommendation,” Danny said. “I notice you’re still hard.”

“I have a naked Danny Kahneman in bed with me,” Amos said, “I will stay hard through events a lot more undignified than rubbing food products on my ass.” There was a slick sound. “I think I’m ready.”

Unlike Amos, unfortunately, Danny did lose his erection after all the complaining and the application of vegetable shortening. So he took his time, stretching himself out over Amos, pressing kisses onto Amos’s cheeks and his eyes and his nose. Amos’s eyelids fluttered shut and he made a low, deep noise.

“Mm, love you,” he said, wrapping his hands around Danny’s neck and pulling him in for a kiss.

Danny’s hardening penis was pressed up against Amos’s stomach. Danny slid down a bit so his cock was rubbing against Amos’s, and was rewarded with a hiss through Amos’s lips. Danny ground his cock into Amos’s, his hips working. Amos’s hands stroked down Danny’s arms, his lips pressed into the hollow in Danny’s throat. Danny reached a hand down between both of their legs, grabbing both of their penises--

“Mm, you’re getting distracted,” Amos said.

“You’re very distracting,” Danny said.

“It was your terrible idea,” Amos said, “and you are the one who is going to have to see it through.”

“We could just finish--” Danny began.

“No,” Amos said. “There is a limited number of times I am willing to put vegetable shortening on myself for you, Danny Kahneman, and you had better take advantage of it.”

With that romantic proposition, Danny got between Amos’s legs and attempted to figure out how the logistics worked, jerking himself off with one hand as he did. The asshole, Danny noticed, was located significantly lower than the vagina. While he’d always been aware of this state of affairs, it had never been so practically important before. And, unfortunately, it meant that very little of his knowledge of sex with girls generalized.

“I think it’d be easier if you put your legs up?” Danny said uncertainly.

“Put your legs up,” Amos grumbled, “what do you think I am, a gymnast?” But he moved so his legs rested on Danny’s shoulders, folding himself almost in half. And then Danny pushed against one thing that was not the asshole, and another thing that was not the asshole, and finally gave up and looked where he was going and lined up his cock into Amos’s asshole and slipped into heaven.

It was hot, so hot and tight and wet and soft. Danny felt like his eyes were almost rolling back into his head. He began to move slowly, not wanting to hurt Amos. He knew it was his own experiment and if he tore any delicate tissues because of his own damn curiosity Danny would never forgive himself.

It was not, all things considered, that unlike the few times Danny had managed to convince a woman to want to have sex with him. Amos’s ass was tighter at the entrance than a vagina would be, but that did not cause so much difference in the sensation. But then he looked down and it was Amos under him, his Amos, stubble on his cheek and cock jutting between his legs and that look of concentration he always had when he was either trying to figure out a particularly confusing puzzle or about to tear Danny’s clothes off and blow him. (The similarity of these two expressions had given Danny quite a few unwanted erections, and occasional miscommunications about why exactly Amos wanted to go to the faculty bathroom.)

“Dear God,” Amos said.

“Does it hurt?” Danny asked. “We can stop if it hurts.”

Amos’s face twisted into this expression that looked a little bit like he was ascending bodily into Heaven and a little bit like he was being strangled.

“Not at all like taking a shit,” Amos said, his breath hitching. “Not-- even a little bit. Dear God.” He punctuated this with a roll of his hips that made Danny see stars.

“So, good, then,” Danny clarified.

“Not-- an example of human irrationality,” Amos said breathily, “no.”

Danny moved gingerly, still unwilling to cause Amos any pain. The very slowness of it, the drag of Amos’s asshole along Danny’s cock, tantalized him and brought his arousal to an even greater height.

“Harder,” Amos said.

“I don’t want to--”

“Harder,” he said, and this time his voice brooked no argument.

Danny picked up the pace. An electric shock of pleasure filled him. Amos’s hands scrabbled down his back, like Amos was a rock climber trying to find a handhold, then found Danny’s head and pulled him in for a kiss. Danny kept up the pace, relentless. Amos’s hands in his hair hurt a little bit. But it was a good pain.

Danny broke away from the kiss. “What’s it like?”

“Wait a bit,” Amos said, the last word trailing off into a moan. “You’ll find out for yourself.”

And that was a fascinating thought, opening up before Amos, making him feel exactly what Danny was feeling right now… but Danny was not going to get distracted that easily. “Tell me,” he said. “I’m curious.”

“It feels like-- like getting split open,” Amos said. “But not in a bad way. Oh, God, yes, that, Danny, you’re so good. And like-- like every nerve in my body is in my ass and I can feel every little move you make and every millimeter you move and it’s hard to think about anything except what’s going on inside me. And like there’s this hole and it’s just craving to be filled, Danny, I want something inside me and then it is and there’s this stretch and you’re so big, God, Danny, you’re filling me up. And then I look up and I see you over me. Your mouth half-open because of how good I’m making you feel. Your hair in your eyes. And I know it’s your cock inside me, Danny, it’s you that is making me feel so good. God, I love you, I love you so much.” He half-laughed. “Danny, I can see the muscles in your arms flex when you’re holding yourself up.”

“I think ‘muscles’ is a bit of an exaggeration,” Danny said.

“They’re there and I can see them, God, Danny, I love you.” Amos’s hand traced down Danny’s face and his jawline, then cupped his cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”

Danny felt himself on the edge of his own orgasm. Seeing Amos bite his lips, knowing that he was the only person who had ever had Amos in this way, feeling the warmth and tightness and knowing that it was Amos who was around him… it was overwhelming.

“Oh god, I need--” Amos said, and then his hand dropped from Danny’s face between his legs. Danny pushed himself up a little bit to give Amos some room and was greeted by the sight of Amos jerking himself off.

Danny had never before seen Amos jerking himself off. Amos’s opinion had been that Danny had two perfectly good hands and one perfectly good mouth and why should he have to do the work? But now Amos’s hand was between his legs and Danny got a good view of Amos stroking himself off, one hand cupped around his balls, and Danny realized that Amos had been driven to this state of arousal by being fucked by none other than he, himself, Danny Kahneman. Amos gave a groan and his come was shooting out of his cock and painting white lines over his stomach and Danny could feel Amos’s orgasm, feel his ass clench with every shot, and this was so astonishingly arousing that Danny pumped three or four more times and came himself.

Amos stroked Danny’s hair with one lazy hand. “You do,” he said, “occasionally have good ideas.”

“That’s why you keep me around.”

“Sometimes they’re even psychological.”

\--

Amos shoved Danny up against the desk, lifting him a bit so he was sitting on the desk . The teetering pile of papers collapsed to the ground with a loud crash, which Danny would have been self-conscious about, if it were not for the fact that the papers did that at least once a week and usually not for nearly as good a reason.

“You’re going to get semen all over the papers,” Danny said. “Semen and spit.”

Amos fell to his knees before Danny and that was-- definitely an image-- but Danny was not going to allow himself to be distracted from the main issue.”

“We can’t have sex on top of these papers,” Danny said, “they’re important work papers.”

Amos was unbuckling Danny’s belt. “No, they’re not.”

“Yes, they are,” Danny said, “that is why they are on my desk, in my office, so I can find them.”

Amos roughly jerked down Danny’s pants then rested his cheek against Danny’s hardening penis, breathing in the scent of him. “You’ve never found anything in here.”

“Yes, I have,” Danny said, “I have found things in this office on at least four occasiooo _ooooh_.”

Amos had swallowed Danny’s entire penis down his throat, which really should not be physically possible without vomiting, and yet here they were. Amos Tversky was good at everything.

And then he was doing the tongue thing. It was really hard to keep track of his objections while Amos was doing the tongue thing.

Amos took his mouth off Danny’s penis to say, “Everything you have in here is garbage because you are a packrat who collects garbage, and I am going to fuck you senseless on top of your useless pile of paperwork and then pull out and ejaculate all over your papers and you know who will care? No one! Because if anyone cared about being able to find papers, they would not have sent them to your office!”

The mental image of Amos ejaculating all over his desk was weirdly hot.

Amos went back to sucking Danny’s dick. It was very sloppy and very enthusiastic; Danny had had women kiss his penis in a dainty and disgusted fashion, but he had never before been with someone as monomaniacally aroused by penises in general or his penis in specific. Danny’s hands, traitorously misunderstanding this entire situation, came to rest on Amos’s head. Danny quickly took them away before Amos got any bright ideas.

“You’re wrong,” Danny said. “It’s like a, mmmmm, a to-do list. I put things in a pile and then I, unh, know what I’m supposed to be working on. Anyway, aaaaah, someday you are going to throw out a paper that’s really-- unnggh-- important, and I will, will-- agh--” Danny threw his head back, uncertain of how he was going to finish that sentence, but also not really caring.

Amos stopped again. Danny was torn between his overpowering urge to grab Amos’s head and shove it back on his dick and his embarrassment about having to admit defeat. “I keep everything important,” Amos said. “You misplaced a girl’s dissertation for three years.”

“One time!” Danny said. “One-- oh, oh--”

His hand flailed wildly on the desk. Papers flew to the ground.

And then Amos, that insufferable bastard, stopped again, his lips millimeter-close to the head of Danny’s dick, and whispered, “You know, I don’t want to have sex with you that you don’t want, we should probably stop.”

Danny, in answer, returned his hands to Amos’s hair and pushed Amos’s mouth onto his cock. Amos was chuckling as he blew Danny which, in fairness, felt pretty good, so Danny wasn’t about to object. And at least if his hands were on Amos’s head they weren’t going to be knocking off any more papers.

\--

“Marry me,” Amos said.

Danny’s head was resting in Amos’s lap. Amos’s fingers were trailing absently through Danny’s hair. The sun was close to setting, its rays slant through the window, bathing them in a warm glow. For once in their lives, they were wearing clothes.

“We’re both men,” Danny said.

“So?”

“Last time I checked,” Danny said, “marriage was between a man and a woman. Definitionally.”

Amos made a low noise in his throat as if he wanted to call Danny an idiot, he would have called any other person who said such a thing an idiot, but out of respect for the insecurities of his love he was going to let it slide. “I don’t care what God or country have to say.”

“Then I’m not sure,” Danny said, “what you mean by ‘marry me.’”

Amos made a vague gesture. “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine.”

“Easy enough,” Danny said, “it’s enough of a miracle that I got one person to want to have sex with me, I’m not going to hope for two.”

“Not sex,” Amos said, and that time there really was a bit of contempt in his voice. “You can have sex with whomever you like, I don’t care. I was talking about papers.”

Danny considered this. “Not writing papers with anyone else?” he said. “Ever again?”

“And if a university wants one of us,” Amos said, “it has to take both of us.”

“Lots of universities will be satisfied having the important half of Tversky and Kahneman.” Danny couldn’t help the little hint of bitterness that crept into his voice.

“Then the universities are stupid,” Amos said, “and I don’t want to go work for a stupid university.”

“That’s going to limit your career,” Danny said.

“I don’t care.” Amos nearly spat the words. He caught one of Danny’s hands between his. “I love you, Danny. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You think after talking with you I’m ever going to be happy working alone? You think I’d be able to write a paper with someone else without spending the whole time wishing it were you?”

Danny had kind of thought the answer was “yes”, but that was apparently not where Amos was going with this.

The problem with Amos’s proposal, of course, was that no matter how much they randomized the order of who was first author, there was always a single first author in everyone’s minds. It was Amos Tversky. Danny couldn’t even resent that-- Amos was a sun around which all the lesser bodies had to rotate. But if he said yes, no one would ever know how good he was. He would always be the little brat that Amos took pity on.

But he would know. And Amos would know. And maybe that was what mattered.

“Yes,” Danny said.

Amos smiled.

“But I’m not wearing a white dress,” Danny said. “Or stomping on a glass. You can get that out of your head right now.”

“Not even the Reform,” Amos said, “will marry two men taking a vow of academic monogamy.”

Danny grinned, and kissed him. They kissed for a long while.


End file.
